The Icarus Agenda by Robert Ludlum

Tony heaved his way up the last flight of steps to the short, thick door at the top that led to the man he had come to see. As he reached the final step he froze, mouth gaping, eyes bulging. Suddenly, without warning, the door whipped open on greased hinges as the half-naked killer lunged out on the short platform, a knife in his left hand, its long, razor-sharp blade glistening in the new sun, while in his right was a small .22 calibre pistol. The blade was poised across MacDonald’s throat, the barrel of the gun jammed into his left temple; unable to breathe, the obese Englishman gripped both railings with his hands to keep from falling back down the steps.

‘It is you,’ said the gaunt, hollow-cheeked man, withdrawing the pistol but keeping the knife in place. ‘You are not to come here. You are never to come here!’

Swallowing air, his immense body rigid, MacDonald spoke hoarsely, feeling the psychopath’s blade across his throat. ‘If it were not an emergency, I would never have done so, that should be perfectly clear.’

‘What is clear is that I was cheated!’ replied the man, wiggling the knife. ‘I killed that importer’s son in the same way I could kill you at this moment. I carved up that girl’s face and left her in the streets with her skirt above her head and I was cheated.’

‘No one meant to.’

‘Someone did!’

‘I’ll make it up to you. We must talk. As I mentioned, it’s an emergency.’

‘Talk here. You don’t come inside. No one comes inside!’

‘Very well. If you’ll be so kind as to permit me to stand rather than hang on for dear life half over this all too ancient staircase—’

‘Talk.’

Tony steadied himself on the third step from the top, taking out a handkerchief and blotting his perspiring forehead, his gaze on the knife below. ‘It’s imperative I reach the leaders inside the embassy. Since they cannot, of course, come out, I must go in to them.’

‘It is too dangerous, especially for the one who gets you inside, since he remains outside.’ The bone-gaunt killer pulled the blade away from MacDonald’s throat, only to readjust it with a twist of his wrist, the glistening point now resting at the base of the Englishman’s neck. ‘You can talk to them on the telephone, people do all the time.’

‘What I have to say—what I must ask them—can’t be spoken over the phone. It’s vital that only the leaders hear my words and I theirs.’

‘I can sell you a number that is not published in the listings.’

‘It’s published somewhere and if you have it, others do also. I cannot take the risk. Inside. I must get inside.’

‘You are difficult,’ said the psychopath, his left eyelid flickering, both pupils dilated. ‘Why are you difficult?’

‘Because I am immensely rich and you are not. You need money for your extravagances… your habits.’

‘You insult me!’ spat out the killer-for-hire, his voice strident but not loud, the half-crazed man aware of the fishermen and dock labourers trudging to their morning chores three storeys below.

‘I’m only being realistic. Inside. How much?’

The killer coughed his foul breath in MacDonald’s face, pulling the blade back and settling his rheumy stare on his past and present benefactor. ‘It will cost a great deal of money. More than you have ever paid before.’

‘I’m prepared for a reasonable increase, not exorbitant, mind you, but reasonable. We’ll always have work for you—’

‘There’s an embassy press conference at ten o’clock this morning,’ interrupted the partially drugged man. ‘As usual, the journalists and television people will be selected at the last minute, their names called out at the gates. Be there, and give me a telephone number so I can give you a name within the next two hours.’

Tony did so: his hotel and his room. ‘How much, dear boy?’ he added.

The killer lowered the knife and stated the amount in Omani rials; it was equivalent to three thousand English pounds, or roughly five thousand American dollars. ‘I have expenses,’ he explained. ‘Bribes must be paid or the one who bribes is dead.’

‘It’s outrageous! cried MacDonald.

‘Forget the whole thing.’

‘Accepted,’ said the Englishman.

Khalehla paced her hotel room, and although she had given up cigarettes for the sixth time in her thirty-two years, she smoked one after another, her eyes constantly straying to the telephone. Under no condition could she operate from the palace. That connection had been jeopardized enough. Damn that son of a bitch!

Anthony MacDonald—cipher, drunk… someone’s agent-extraordinary—had his efficient network in Masqat, but she was not without resources herself, thanks to a roommate at Radcliffe who was now a sultan’s wife—thanks to Khalehla’s having introduced a fellow Arab to her best friend a number of years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts. God, how the world moved in smaller, swifter and ever more familiar circles! Her mother, a native Californian, had met her father, an exchange-student from Port Said, while both were in graduate school at Berkeley, she an Egyptologist, he working for his doctorate in Western Civilization, both aiming for academic careers. They fell in love and got married. The blonde California girl and the olive-skinned Egyptian.

In time, with Khalehla’s birth, the stunned, racially-absolute grandparents on both sides discovered that there was more to children than the purity of strain. The barriers fell in a sudden rush of love. Four elderly individuals, two couples predisposed to abhor each other, had bridged the gaps of culture, skin and belief by finding joy in a child and other mutually shared pleasures. They became inseparable, the banker and his wife from San Diego and the wealthy exporter from Port Said and his only Arab wife.

‘What am I doing?’ cried Khalehla to herself. This was no time to think about the past, the present was everything! Then she realized why her mind had wandered—two reasons really. Firstly the pressures had become too great; she needed a few minutes to herself, to think about herself and those she loved if only to try to understand the hatred that was everywhere. The second was the more important reason. The faces and the words spoken at a dinner party long ago had been lurking in the background, especially the words, quietly echoing off the walls of her mind; they had made an impression on an eighteen-year-old girl about to leave for America.

‘The monarchs of the past had precious little to their overall credit,’ her father had said that night in Cairo when the whole family was together, including both sets of grandparents. ‘But they understood something our present leaders don’t consider—can’t consider actually, unless they try to become hereditary rulers themselves, which wouldn’t be seemly in these times although some do try.’

‘What’s that, young man?’ asked the California banker. ‘I haven’t entirely given up on monarchy, with the proper right-wing principles, of course.’

‘Well, throughout history, they arranged marriages to make alliances, to bring the diverse nations into their central families. Once a person knows another under those circumstances—dining, dancing, hunting, even telling jokes—it’s difficult to maintain a stereotyped bias, isn’t it?’

Everyone around the table had looked at one another, smiles and gentle nods emerging.

‘In such circles, however, my son,’ remarked the exporter from Port Said, ‘things did not always work out so felicitously as here. I’m no scholar, but there were wars, families against their own, ambitions thwarted.’

‘True, revered Father, but how much worse might it have all been without such arranged marriages? Far, far worse, I’m afraid.’

‘I refuse to be seen as a geopolitical tool!’ Khalehla’s mother had exclaimed, laughing.

‘Actually, my dear, everything between us was arranged by our devious parents here. Have you any idea how they’ve profited from our alliance?’

‘The only profit I’ve ever seen is the lovely young lady who’s my granddaughter,’ said the banker.

‘She’s off to America, my friend,’ said the exporter. ‘Your profits may dwindle.’

‘How does it feel, darling? Quite an adventure for you, I’d think.’

‘It’s hardly the first time, Grandmother. We’ve visited you and Grandfather a lot, and I’ve been to quite a few cities.’

‘It will be different now, dear.’ Khalehla forgot who had said those words but they were the beginning of one of the strangest chapters of her life. ‘You’ll be living there,’ added whoever it was.

‘I can’t wait. Everyone’s so friendly, you feel so wanted, so liked.’

Once again those around the table looked at one another. It was the banker who had broken the silence. ‘You may not always feel that way,’ he said quietly. ‘There will be times when you’re not wanted, not liked, and it will confuse you, certainly hurt you.’

‘That’s hard to believe, Grandfather,’ said an ebullient young girl Khalehla only vaguely remembered.

The Californian had briefly looked at his son-in-law, his eyes pained. ‘As I think back, it’s hard for me to believe it, too. Don’t ever forget, young lady, if problems arise or if things become difficult, pick up the phone and I’ll be on the next plane.’